


will ever be as one

by nerdytardis



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Character Study, Episode: s04e10 XXXVIII., Gen, Goodbyes, Light Angst, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:41:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25230007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdytardis/pseuds/nerdytardis
Summary: From the moment Silver had confirmation that Thomas Hamilton was alive, he knew this moment would come.  He never could have predicted the mess that Rogers was going to make of everything—how complicated it would all get—but this was always where they were going to end up.(Flint and Silver say goodbye)
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw & John Silver, Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	will ever be as one

**Author's Note:**

> i watched all of black sails in like a week and a half.....it has Ruined me (and also helped me finally get over my writer's block, so a big thank you to toby stephens for that) 
> 
> sorry for any typos/mistakes  
> title and epigraph are from "friends never say goodbye" by elton john

_Who's to say who's right or wrong  
Whose course is braver run  
Still we are, have always been  
Will ever be as one_

\- - -

From the moment Silver had confirmation that Thomas Hamilton was alive, he knew this moment would come. He never could have predicted the mess that Rogers was going to make of everything—how complicated it would all get—but this was always where they were going to end up. 

Despite those weeks of mental preparation, handing the coins over to Morgan was still harder than Silver expected it would be.

While it was an act of great love, it was also a killing blow. As he watched the older man’s blunt fingers, long crusted over with calluses and salt, curl around that sack of money, Silver _felt_ how ugly and violent the transaction was.

“Make sure to leave him in shackles until they are face to face.”

“You think he’ll try to escape?” Morgan looked equal parts scared and incredulous of the possibility.

“No—” Silver shook his head, “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t want to take any chances.”

“And that’ll all come to an end when Flint sees this…man?”

“Yes.”

Morgan eyed him, but didn’t push for an explanation. For that, Silver was grateful. Destroying his closest friend, cracking him down the middle and watching him melt away, was hard enough. Trying to explain why he’d done it to the blustery old pirate in front of him would likely have pushed him over the edge to something he didn’t want to contemplate. 

Silver waved towards the door. “That’s all.”

Morgan nodded, only hesitating for a moment before he left Silver alone in the captain’s cabin. It was a strange feeling, to be sitting here without the familiar presence of Flint, or anyone really. 

But Jack was overseeing their docking in Savannah, and Flint—

Flint wasn’t real. Silver knew that for certain now. He’d suspected as much, long before he’d even heard the name Thomas Hamilton whisper from his captain’s trembling lips. After years of remaking himself and seeing himself remade, Silver knew how to spot a lie that had become its own kind of truth. 

He’d peeked within the cage a few times, but now he saw the figment, the myth, in its totality. His friend was a mask, put upon by a man he didn’t fully understand. And Silver was the one who forced that transformation, a fact he would have to live with for the rest of his life. 

Silver sighed and looked out the windows, at the ships ferrying around the port. 

Thomas Hamilton had been imprisoned for loving James McGraw. Both of these men were strangers to Silver, and yet he still handed over coin, hard-won with blood and sweat, to buy both of them their freedoms. Hamilton’s from Oglethorpe’s prison colony, and McGraw’s from the clutches of his own fury. 

Silver hoped they recognized each other, even after all these years. He could barely imagine a world where they didn’t, but still—he couldn’t keep down the cloying fear that he’d unmade his best friend for nothing.

But it would never be for nothing. Far away, Madi was breathing, maybe in anger, but breathing nonetheless. If there was even a sliver of a chance that they could live out the life he imagined, he would burn this whole ship to have it.

There was a knock at the door. Silver grabbed his crutch and stood, as Jack poked his head in. 

Jack said, “We’ve been cleared to disembark.”

“Bring him up.”

Jack nodded for a moment, before stepping fully into the cabin and closing the door behind him. Always adapt at reading a room, he started slowly. “I’m fairly certain I already know the answer to this, but I thought I might as well ask one more time. For good measure and all that.”

“I won’t tell you where he is going.”

“Right. Yes.” Jack waved one of his hands about, the frills of his cuff flowing with him, “I was wondering if I could take one more crack at trying to get the location of the treasure—”

“Captain Flint is leaving this ship whole and unharmed.” 

“You think I didn’t know that?” Jack visibly recalculated his approach, “I was only thinking of talking to him. Persuading him. He’s been awfully agreeable as of late and I think—”

“I’m sorry but I don’t particularly care about what you think right now. Get him above deck.” Silver moved forward, pushing past Jack, and leaving no room for argument.

Squinting at the sunlight, Silver emerged from the cabin. He surveyed the port, the crew, the ship. After a bit, the distinctive jangle of chains echoed behind him.

Silver turned. 

The man who emerged from the hold looked much the same as he always had. Quiet. Collected. His brow curled as he thought of something—an expression that few, if any, have ever been able to read. 

His eyes found Silver. 

Silver waved Jack away, letting what was left of Captain Flint meet him at the gunwale alone. 

“The plantation isn’t far from here.” Silver said, “You’ll only have a short ride.”

“You’re not coming?” The captain seemed honestly taken aback. Whether he meant to or not, Flint quietly admitted that the idea of them separated was as absurd to him as it was to everyone else.

Silver turned to him. “No.”

Flint searched his face, breathed out, and nodded. “This is it then.”

“Yes.”

The gulls called around them, swooping low over the water and searching for scraps of food. 

“If you are lying to me about this. About him.” Flint’s voice was a razor, “I will find you.”

“I know.” Silver was almost insulted Flint felt the need to spell it out, “I’m not.”

Flint caught his eye again. “We could have changed the world. Between the three of us.”

“And which would have to live on? Would any of us have made it?” Silver looked away, “The stakes were too high.”

“That’s how you know it was worth doing.”

“That—” Silver couldn’t help but let out a bitter chuckle, “I’m handing you what you wanted—what you admitted you would have _personally_ given up this whole bloody affair for—and you still can’t admit that I’m right.”

“It’s gotten me this far.”

Silver blinked at him; at this man who had changed his life, and who had just made…a joke?

Flint looked away, any ghostly trace of humor leaving him as quickly as it arrived. “Even if what you say is true.” Flint said, “I still can’t thank you for it.”

“I can live with that.”

Flint huffed.

“You can even continue to hate me if you want, and I’ll live with that too.” Silver said, “The point of the matter is that we’ll both be alive.”

Flint didn’t respond. He just kept watching the sailors bustling about the dock.

Silver studied Flint’s profile, saw the way he pursed his lips and tracked the sailors with his eyes. In that moment, Silver knew that he was never going find anyone like the man standing before him. 

He’d meet great men, sure, but never one like this. For this man was, at his core, a blank page. Flint was constructed of the same material Silver had built himself upon—the words of others and the tales they twisted with their own tongues. 

There were now passages within Flint that Silver didn’t know, that he would never know. This was the last goodbye. 

There would be no reunion, no drinking to old friends in a pub. Flint was being rewritten, right before Silver’s eyes. If they did ever find themselves stepping foot into the same room again, they would be like two who knew each other in another life.

Recognizable, perhaps even familiar, but ultimately nothing more than strangers. 

“I’ll miss you.” Silver said, unapologetic in his sincerity. 

Flint looked at him. Considered him. It was a familiar gaze, one that drove a spike of nostalgia through Silver’s chest.

“I just wanted you to know that.”

Flint kept staring at him. The gulls screeched and the sailors hollered as the mess of activity swirled around them. 

Silver realized that Morgan was already waiting by the gangplank, with Gunn and Israel in tow. Flint followed his gaze. He took stock of the men chosen to escort him to the plantation; then turned back to Silver. 

For a moment, Silver thought that Flint would just leave without another word. But then Flint offered out his hand. It hung in the space between them.

Something near a smile pulled at Silver’s lips as he took Flint’s hand in his and shook it. Calluses and bone and skin, they shared something more than memory for the last time. 

After he let go, Flint hesitated for the briefest moment. His eyes flashed to Silver’s. 

Flint’s voice was quiet, but earnest, as he said, “I don’t hate you. For whatever it’s worth.”

Silver’s usually mercurial words solidified and stuck in his throat. 

“Goodbye.” Silver said. It was about all he could manage.

Flint’s jaw flexed. “Goodbye.”

They didn’t say anything else, but the silence held within it a cacophony of meanings. Promises, secrets, memories—it all flowed before their eyes like shadows upon a wall. Like moonlight upon the sea. 

It didn’t feel like a happy ending, not to Silver, but maybe James McGraw and Thomas Hamilton would get something more when their own time came. Silver prayed that it would be so.

Flint turned. He walked to where Morgan and the others waited. They descended the gangplank and made their way to a coach waiting at the edge of the dock. 

Silver watched until he couldn’t make them out amid the traffic. Then he watched some more. When his men return, he will ask for a report about what happened. They won’t tell him what he really wants to know, but they will still tell him something. 

And right now, that was everything.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!


End file.
